Untitled article by C. P. B.

Pacific Press Publishing Company · New York · August 25, 1892

FromThe American Sentinel, Vol. 7, No. 33

Hands Off!

By C. P. B.

IN discussing the action of the Senate on the question of closing the World's Fair on Sunday the Nebraska State Journal says:—

Senator Manderson offered an amendment that is sensible and to the point. It was that all those sections of the Fair that involved machinery and labor, be closed on Sunday, leaving it optional with the managers to open the art galleries on that day if they so decide. There appears to be no reason why people should not be permitted to look at a painting or a piece of sculpture on Sunday, that would not also forbid them listening to a choir and an organ. It is no more a sin, per se, to look upon a collection of curiosities from the four points of the compass on that day than in admiring a beautiful landscape that nature has spread out before us in infinite variety, and opened on Sunday.

In short, while Sunday should be made a day of rest for all those who can be spared from necessary labor, it is rather foolish and obsolete to attempt to make it a day of penance to those who have the opportunity of resting.

The amendment offered by Senator Manderson was no more sensible than was the original proposition to close the whole Fair. If it is a matter over which Congress has jurisdiction, and a question upon which it is proper to legislate, there is no use in stopping with half way measures. Congress is asked to provide that the Fair shall be closed because of the claim that Sunday is the Sabbath. Now if that were true, and if it were a matter of which Congress could properly take cognizance, that body would have no right to make any compromise. God has laid down the law of the Sabbath and Congress has no right to abate one jot or tittle from that law. The law of the Sabbath commands: “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.” Nor are we left in doubt as to the meaning of this command. An inspired commentary upon it says it means to “turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day;” and to “call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honorable,” and to “honor him [the Lord, the Author of the Sabbath], not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words” upon the Sabbath. See Isa. 58:13. Now if people were to go to the Fair on Sunday it would be for nothing else than their own pleasure, and would be as palpable a violation of the law of the Sabbath, if that law applied to Sunday, as to do anything else forbidden by the fourth commandment. That commandment requires more than simply rest from physical toil. It requires spiritual service, a service that can be rendered only by those who are spiritual. Congress has no jurisdiction whatever in the matter and can never properly acquire any jurisdiction. For Congress or any other human power to attempt to enforce the divine law as God gave it, would be to usurp authority which belongs alone to God, and would be moreover to attempt an impossibility, for only God can give the power to render a spiritual service, and that is the kind of service required by the law of the Sabbath. On the other hand, for Congress or any other human power to abate somewhat from the divine law professing to be governed by it, would be to think to change that law as did the wicked power described in the twenty-fifth verse of the seventh chapter of Daniel. It follows that the only proper course for Congress, and for all other human powers of government, is simply to let the whole question of Sabbath observance alone, leaving all men free to render to God such service as they see fit to give, being individually accountable to him for that service.

But God requires no man to keep Sunday as the Sabbath. That day is not the Sabbath. It never can be the Sabbath any more than the Fourth of July can be Christmas, and for Congress to require its observance as such is the height of absurdity; yea, it is worse than an absurdity, it is a wickedly blasphemous attempt to foist upon the world a base counterfeit in place of the Sabbath of the Lord. Congress and every other human authority should let the whole question of Sabbath observance alone. C. P. B.